My Fifth Step Witness Was My Infant Daughter in her Crib – Mitchell K.

My name is Mitchell Klein and I'm an alcoholic. Good day. I'm used to speaking to a whole bunch of people. I know when I first was asked by Phil to speak here, which I also want to thank Phil and everybody else for asking me to speak, I'm really honored to have been asked and this is a great honor and a great pleasure. You know, what the format of the meeting is and what I'm supposed to be speaking about, he wrote back that I'll be speaking for an hour sharing experience with alcoholism, all 12 steps, including A as a whole and all three sides of the triangle. And I'm saying, okay, I got an hour to my experience with alcoholism. No way I could do that in an hour. Unless, you know, an hour when I spoke. I mean, maybe back in the old days when I was like, you know, doing things that made me, you know, my metabolism go a lot faster, I could have done it. But not today. So, you know, I will do the best that I can. And I know we said, you know, confine remarks, you know, about alcoholism. I prefer confining my remarks dealing with recovery from alcoholism rather than alcoholism. So. I think everybody in here has got enough knowledge about alcoholism that I don't have to, you know, we've all got postgraduate experience in alcoholism that I don't have to, you know, educate you in what alcoholism is. And I've learned all kinds of great stuff going to AA meetings in case, you know, something ever happened that I ever decided to go back out again. New things that I could try, but there's no reason to. The other thing was, is that. You know, I wrote some stuff down that they usually don't do is, you know, primary purpose group is like, you know, what is primary purpose? And, you know, I was reading through, you know, the Dallas primary purpose group thing. And it says, you know, we didn't want to use the preamble because that's the grapevine. You know, it's not from the big book. So it says, you know, primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety. Even though the grapevine is not conference approved literature. Forward to the first edition. To show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovers the main purpose of the book, which I believe. And the long form of the tradition. Tradition number five is each alcoholics anonymous group. What would be a spiritual entity having but one primary purpose is that of carrying its message to the alcoholic who still suffers. Which I believe. But then again, you know, we're on page 77. It talks about what our real purpose is, which is to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to God and to the people about us. And that. To me. Is what it's all about. You know, which is what our real purpose is and what my primary purpose in life is. And I know I came into a to figure out a way of. You know, learning how to stop drinking and. Actually, I didn't really come in to figure out how to stop drinking. I figured out trying to came to find out how to keep drinking but not have the consequences. You know, how do I not get in trouble? How do I not have all the health problems? How do I not have my doctor tell me I'm going to die? How do I do all the things I was doing but keep drinking? But soon found out that it wasn't about the fact of consequences or not consequences. Who's I soon found out it was about having a changed life. But I also one thing you may find out about me is that in the long form of the third tradition where it says, you know, as far as membership, your membership order include all those who suffer from alcoholism. Hence, we may refuse none who wish to recover. And here's here's where where my special talents come in. Nor or a membership ever depend upon money or conformity. I have no money and I definitely am a nonconformist. So I say things sometimes that if you don't agree with, I'm sorry, but too bad. But it's okay because we're all allowed to have our own opinions. We're all allowed to believe the way we believe. And and you know, if it's working for you, keep doing it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And if you're still sober and you keep sober and whatever it is you're doing is working. God bless you and keep keep traveling down that road because what I got is working for me. So I always tell people that what you have is working. Keep doing it. So everybody's. Everybody has a right to their opinions. Everybody has a right to their stuff. I also looked in this book as far as, you know, what I'm supposed to talk about. And the book tells me it's basic text. So it gives me very clear directions of what I'm supposed to be saying. And it does say it says our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like experience. What happened? Strength and what we are like now. Oh, so we share our experience. Strength and hope. What I used to be like is my experience, which is my experience with alcoholism. Strength and hope, which is two thirds of my story and only one third has to do with my drinking. And if you take a look at the 12 steps where alcohol is only mentioned once and the rest of it's about recovery. So I'm not going to give you a whole story about my drinking because, you know, I'm sure everybody's got. You know, much better drinking story than I have. I did some really crazy things. And one of the things that I did was was when I finally got the sponsor who worked for me, I sat down and he asked me to tell him my story. And my story pretty much began, you know, he used to tell his story was he began his story was, you know, I was born at a very early age. And I started drinking. And I started drinking somewhere between 12, 13, somewhere around there. I didn't like the way it tasted. I didn't like the way it felt. I didn't like anything about it. Except within 10 or 15 minutes, I fit in. Everybody looked good. Everybody, you know, accepted me because I was supplying them with booze. You know, so of course they liked me. And regardless of how it felt going down. Regardless of all the other stuff that was horrible. I became part of the group. I became part of the people I was with. And I liked that. So I kept doing it. And it kept growing and growing and growing. And I found other wonderful things, you know, that were out there and became involved with that as well. And kept drinking and kept doing wonderful things. And my life became totally unmanageable. Kept doing insane stuff like I'm going to stop drinking. An hour and a half later, I was drinking again. I, you know, fast forward. I became, you know, a daily drinker. I became multiple volumes and volumes and volumes of alcohol. I got to a point where I was drinking to where I was totally numb. And I remember one night, you know, I was photographing a wedding. And I was... And I drank, I don't know, it must have been a gallon and a half of vodka or whatever it was. And I had to drive home, you know. And the way I drove home, because I couldn't feel my feet, you know. But as long as I knew the car was moving ahead, I knew the car was moving. And as long as I saw the little poles on the side of the road, I knew I was on the road. So that's how I managed to get home somehow. And I couldn't feel my feet. I couldn't feel my hands. I couldn't feel anything. But I knew. Just by observing certain things that I was still on the road. And whether I lucked out or didn't luck out, I never got stopped by the police. I never got into, you know, an accident. I never... None of that stuff ever happened. And one of the main reasons for that was because when I moved out of the Bronx, and I moved up to Orange County, New York, I was renting a house right across the street from a bar. That was one of the selling points of renting that house. I got up there. You know, I didn't ask how much the rent was. I didn't ask anything like that. I looked across the street. And I said, no DWIs, no accidents, no anything. I said, I'll take it. So I did. And it was a match made in heaven. So, you know, but... So I continued drinking. And, you know, one time I had an argument with my wife. And I put my hand through a glass door. And the saving grace of that was after being stitched up in the hospital, the doctor said I should go home and have a glass of wine. You know. And I looked at my wife and I said, told you. It's okay. I mean, I was drunk at the time we had the argument. And wanted to storm out of the house and did this. And 50 some odd stitches later, that's what happened. But the doctor said it was okay to drink. So I believe that. My life, you know, was totally unmanageable. And it was a bad scene. And my wife at the time... And my wife at the time had started going to Over Eats Anonymous. And the same place they were holding AA meetings. And she started bringing home these AA pamphlets. And I was commuting to work in Manhattan. And she started leaving AA pamphlets in the house. And I had to lose them out. And she kept bringing them home every week. I think it's funny because she probably brought them a whole bunch of them. Kept them hidden somewhere. And kept taking them out of wherever she kept hiding them. And kept putting them in the house. And then she became really nasty and sneaky. And took the newspapers and stuff out of the bathroom. And at 3 o'clock in the morning, because I had to take an early bus into the city. That's all I was in the bathroom to read. What am I going to read when I'm sitting here at 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning? So I was reading the pamphlets. And I thought it was a really great thing that you people had this kind of a program for your problem. Right. Right. But I didn't have that problem. I did have a couple of quarts under my seat in the car. And while I was waiting for the bus, I drank them. But I didn't have a problem. And eventually, it got to a point where I went to visit my parents who still live in the Bronx. And they wouldn't let me drink in their house. And so I took a walk and passed by a church. It had this little silver and blue circled triangle out in front of the church. And I remember that symbol somewhere in the fog from those pamphlets. And I walked into that room. I don't remember much of that night other than the fact that I felt that I was home. I don't remember really much of what people were saying to me. But I knew that this was somewhere I belonged. I was the youngest person in the room. And these bunch of old guys came and put their arms around me. I was shaking. I weighed almost 300 pounds. I stunk. I was in bad shape. And after the meeting, they kind of sat and ganged up on me and started talking to me about asking me if I wanted to stop drinking. And I said, well, I'm not sure if I want to stop. But something felt good about being here. And what happened was that I started saying, yeah, but. And yeah, but. And then they told me, you know, the only but I got is the one I sit on. Don't drink and go to meetings. And if that stops working, go to meetings and don't drink. But I don't live here. They said, don't worry about it. There's meetings everywhere in the world. No matter where you live, you'll find a meeting. I said, yeah, but you don't know where. The only but you got is the one you sit on. So don't drink. Go to meetings. And, you know, if you're ever back here in the Bronx, just come on by and pay us a visit. So I went home. And I told them. I told my wife that I'm going to stop drinking. She looked at me in her head. Okay. And the next night I went to a meeting. And the night after that I went to a meeting. And the night after that I went to the meeting. And for the next year, I pretty much only went to meetings. I was kind of a sick person. I just recently got my Social Security statement from, you know, from the Social Security Department. And for the. My first year of sobriety. My income for the year was 60 bucks. 28 years old. And I made $60 for the whole year. So I guess the only thing I did was go to meetings. One whole year. And I mean, the next year I think it was $140 I made. So I didn't hold down a job for maybe a week. But that's what I did. I went to meetings. And it didn't matter. It didn't matter where the meetings were. If I heard there was a great step meeting out in Long Island, I drove to Long Island. We took road trips all over the place. If I heard there was a big book meeting, you know, up in Sullivan County or in Pennsylvania or whatever it was. Wherever it was, I went to the meeting. And I got involved. And I didn't drink and I went to meetings. I didn't drink and I went to meetings. And that's all I had. And I. Some sneaky person handed me, you know, a big book. And nowhere in here did I read anywhere saying don't drink and go to meetings. It started, it was talking about other stuff. It was talking about recovery. It was talking about, you know, happy, joyous and free. And it was talking about spirituality. And it was talking about God. It was talking about, you know, all kinds of stuff in life other than don't drink and go to meetings. It was also around that time that, you know, I too had, you know, lost a whole lot of weight. And started discovering in my sobriety and my weight loss that I was a different person. And discovered women other than my wife. And decided, you know, that I was going to explore. Which I did. And I wasn't drinking. And it was okay. And then I was like seeing somebody in Brooklyn. And what happened was is that. You know, after my wife went to bed or taking a shower. I would call up and say, you know, hi, love you, see you tomorrow. You know, all this other good stuff. Not thinking, you know, that the phone number would show up on the phone bill. You know, and about a month or two later, I came home. You know, and by that time, you know, I had a little infant girl. And came home from work. And my baby girl was sitting in a high chair. And my. My wife was on the phone with somebody. And she said, somebody wants to talk to you. Oh. Somebody. I guess one of my sponsees was calling. And I said, hi. And she said, why did your wife call me? My world kind of fell apart at that particular point. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. It was kind of like told to. It was kind of combination of get out, sleep on the couch downstairs. I want nothing to do with you. Really not going to throw you out because of the baby. And soon after that, it was going on, you know, spiritual search of like, you know, there's something wrong with this don't drink and go to meetings stuff. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. And. group which was a young people's meeting up in Orange County and the guy came in and said he had a bad day at work came home slammed the door kicked the dog yelled at the kids almost hit the wife but it didn't take a drink and it's okay and everybody applauded everybody says you're a winner I'm sitting there kind of like crying because my life is totally gone I'm like downstairs on a couch somewhere my life is you know my marriage is over and I looked at it having like almost two choices left is either like drink or kill myself I didn't think of recovery as the third choice because I was ashamed of what I did and I was like really angry with a a because all they told me to do is don't drink no meetings but I kept reading this book and I kind of like went on a spiritual search and you know I was like I just want to go back and have a drink and I was like I was like I just want to go back and have a drink and I was like I we have these coincidences that happen in a and I was like listening to these father Martin tapes and I was always interested in a history and stuff and I was going down to the archives in New York City and talking with Nell wing who was the archivist at the time and and said like you know I keep reading all this stuff in the big book do you notice like you know father Martin guy and she goes yeah yeah yes anyway I can get in touch with him so she she she gives me his phone number and and i call him up and I say probably one of the best things i've ever said move one of the many super things would at the time i thought it was a stupid thing I said to you sounds just like you do on the tapes and he said you know I'm speaking like in two weeks in new jersey here we can talk have time to talk to me right then so I went I purchased tickets to this thing we're at And being a typical alcoholic, I, like, totally lost my nerve. And, you know, didn't have the nerve to go backstage and say, like, you know, I spoke to you on the phone, and I'm so-and-so, and, you know, and I really need to talk to you. And there was an empty seat in front of me. There was only an empty seat in the entire theater. Guess who walks out, you know, from backstage and sits down right in front of me to talk to somebody he knew? Well, Martin. Totally froze, didn't say anything, blew that opportunity that night. Went home that night kicking myself the whole night and saying, like, I could have talked to the guy, I could have been there. Several of those things happened. And so I, you know, I took part in the A.A. Loner's program, which is meetings by mail, and I got involved with corresponding with an old-timer who came in in the mid-'40s in Ohio. And I wanted to know what it was that these guys in the big book had that I didn't have and I wasn't hearing in the rooms of A.A. Because all I was hearing in the rooms of A.A. was people talking about going out, coming back, going out, coming back, keep coming back. Everybody keeps going out. Everybody keeps coming back. You know, it's like nobody stays sober. Everybody's miserable. Everybody's having, like, relationship problems. I didn't. I didn't want anything to do with relationships at that particular point because I knew that's where that got me. I just wanted to stay sober. I wanted what these people had. So I asked, you know, this guy, like, what it was that they had. And he gave me the name of address of somebody whose story was in the big book, a guy named Clarence Snyder whose story was no longer in the big book in the first three editions of the big book. And being a typical alcoholic, I didn't want to write to him. I would take, you know, what if he didn't write back? What if it took, you know, a week to write and two weeks to write back? Or what if he'd lost the letter? What if it got lost in the mail? What if he didn't think my letter was special enough that he could, you know, answer it? So I called information. And I got his number. And I called him up. He wasn't home. He wasn't home. His wife answered the phone. And so I said, you know, is Clarence there? She said, no, he's at lodge tonight. You know, there's a Mason. Just like a whole bunch of other, like Dr. Bob and a whole bunch of other people in early AA were Masons. And as I'm talking to her and I was explaining my story and all this other stuff, and she said, oh, he just walked in the door. So we talked. And then we started corresponding. And, you know, when he picked up the phone, I knew I wanted what he had. It was kind of like the phone started glowing. I don't know what it was, but it was just, I wanted that. You know, and I was downstairs. And I went upstairs after I got off the phone with him. And I kind of knocked on my wife's door. And I walked in there and she looked at me with this loving look that if it looks good, she'll let me dead. And I wanted to say, just like I said that first night, like I'm not drinking anymore. I wanted to say, like I found the answer. And I just in the look, I said, it's OK, never mind. Because I knew she wouldn't believe me anyway. And so I figured out he lives in Florida. And I figured out how much it was going to cost me to fly to Florida to, you know, go through the steps with this gentleman. Because he had this strange way of doing things over a weekend, the way they used to do stuff back in the early days. You know, a matter of two, three days, he would take somebody through the steps. And it would cost me a couple hundred bucks to fly to Florida. And being an alcoholic, I figured, you know, let me do kind of like a typical alcoholic way of doing things. Let me figure out a way of getting you people to fly him up here. So he could be my friend. And I figured, you know, I'm going to fly him up here. And I figured, you know, I'm going to fly him up here. And he's going to be my sponsor and take me through the steps. So I put on this retreat in Middletown, New York. Figuring that all you nice people would come to this retreat. And I'd charge an extra like 10 or 15 bucks, you know, over and above what the hotel and everything else cost. Which would pay for his airfare and his wife's airfare and all this other good stuff. And it ended up, not that many people came to that retreat. And it cost me a whole lot of money. And I had to pay not only for his airfare, his wife's airfare, his food. He stayed an extra few days, his hotel room. God has got a very weird sense of humor. So it cost me probably about, I don't know, 10 times more than it would have been if I just flew down four or five days to Florida and stayed at his house. But it ended up, you know, I cornered him several times saying, I want you to take me through the steps. My life is falling apart. My marriage is falling apart. I, you know. I don't want to drink, but I don't want to live. And I want what you have. And I picked him up at the airport. I had never met the man. I didn't know who he was. But when he got off the ramp, I saw somebody who looked like they were floating, you know, three feet off the ground. They looked, you know, somebody who was like glowing like, you know, the old religious things. Who was him? And I walked up to him and I said, Clarence? He said, yes. And the ride up in the car and that kind of, that click. It was just, you know, that was what I wanted. And every time I went to him, I said, I want what you have. Take me through the steps and say, we'll talk about it. And I, you know, I cornered him again a few hours later. We'll talk about it. We'll talk about it. We'll talk about it. And it got to a point where I just like, you know, I was just coming around the bend in the hotel hallway. And I almost like, you know, grabbed him by the neck and said, I don't want to talk about it. I want to do this. Either you do this right now or like the retreat's over. I'm saying everybody home. You know, this is it. And he goes like, okay, do you have a problem, you know, with alcohol? Do you know if your life unmanageable? I said, my life unmanageable. You know, I gave him a whole, you know, five second spiel about what's been going on. He says, you know, you sick? He says, yeah, I'm sick. I'm probably one of the six people you know. You know, do you want to get well? Yes, I want to get well. When do you want to get well? Yesterday. What do you want me to do? Well, anything you ask. If you want me to like get naked, stand on my head in the lobby of the hotel. You want me to just, you know, hand out whatever. You want to hand out, I'll do it. He said, okay, you know, the retreat's over for the evening. Let's go back to my room. Let's start working. I guess it took me to really say this is what I wanted. And so what we did was I told him my story. I told him the story of my drinking, everything that I had done, the unmanageability, the insanity. Like, I mean, sane people like, you know, jump across rooftops of buildings in the Bronx running away from the police. I mean, sane people. I'll do that. Sane people like say they're going to, you know, stop drinking. Sane people tell their doctors when they tell me you have like, you know, a couple of weeks to live. And, you know, you keep drinking. Sane people do a whole lot of stuff that I was doing when I was drinking. And after about, I don't know, two hours of that, he said, okay, you've done step one. What do you mean I've done step one? Don't I have to do like assignments? Don't I have to take a year? Don't I have to like do all this other stuff? That everybody else tells me I have to do? He said, well, what did we just do? You admitted you were powerless over alcohol and that your life had become unmanageable. You just explained everything that happened to your marriage. The fact that even though you weren't drinking, you were still, your life was totally unmanageable because of, you know, untreated alcoholism. Because all you were doing was not drinking. You didn't do anything about your alcoholism. You just weren't drinking. You did step one. That was pretty simple. And so you admitted you were like totally crazy. So did you try and like, you know, change that yourself? Yeah, I tried it a hundred times. I tried it a thousand times. I tried, you know, I went to like meetings ten times a day. I went to meetings seven days a week. So he asked me to kind of explain to him what my interpretation of, you know, what God was. What my understanding of God was. And I said, well, God was, you know, God was of my making. Because whenever I wanted God to... I wanted to like turn God's back, you know, because I wanted to cheat on my wife. I wanted to steal from my employer. When I wanted to do what I wanted to do, I just said, God, like, kind of like, you know, can you just turn the other way? Can you close your eyes? Can you just, you know, don't look? God did that because it was not only God is my understanding, it was God is my making. So I said, obviously your God is not working too well for you. So he said, no. You want to try mine? Well, mine isn't working. So, you know, we talked a little bit about his conception of God. And I said, like, okay. I can try that. He said, no, no, no. Do you believe in God or not? Try. He said, well, no, it's not about trying. You can't try. And he puts down a piece of paper on a table. And he goes, like, try and pick up the piece of paper. And I go like this. He said, no, no, try. And I pick up the piece. No, try. You can't try. You do what you don't do. And years later, I think of, like, Yoda. You know. There is no try as you do or don't do. Somehow or other, maybe Clarence was his sponsor, too. I don't know. But, so, you know, just try mine. You know. And every time I kind of balked a little bit and said, like, yeah, but, and all this other stuff, he kind of got up and went to the door and opened the door and says, well, you know, try and find somebody else who has what you want. And, you know, and thank you very much for, you know, asking me. And I said, no, no, no, we'll keep going. So, so I came to believe that a power grid and myself could restore me to sanity. And I said, wait a minute, we just, you know, he said, you did two and three. I said, that's too simple. Well, he told me it's not that simple. It takes years to do this. You have to, like, write this stuff down. You have to do assignments. And you have to do, like, a step a year. And, you know, it was explained to me. And what I learned later on also is that, you know, I think this book is a pretty good book. And the program is a pretty good program. I don't know, you know, if people agree with that or not. But of those people who wrote this book and wrote this program, the longest amount of sobriety was just over four years. The next was just under four years, which is Dr. Bob. The average amount of sobriety was about 18 months. So technically a bunch of thing, one thing, that's wrote this program. That works for the last 70 some odd years. 78 years. 78 years. Okay. Yeah, 78 years. So a bunch of people, you know, wrote this program that worked for a whole lot of years who didn't have, like, a whole, you know, who weren't old timers, who didn't, like, do a step a year because if they did a step a year, I don't think we'd have this book. They want a recovery. They got recovery. They did this thing. They got it over with. So we went through the steps. And we got up to, you know, making. And I remember early on I had done steps. And I had done, like, four steps. I did postnatal, prenatal, APOR guide, blueprint for progress. I wrote, you know, things about, like, that thick, autobiographies. And nothing ever worked until, like, we went over. Pretty much he asked me, like, about 20 questions. Like, have I had, you know, or do I have any one of these character defects? And I said, yeah. And he gave examples of what manifested in the defects. You know, pride and self-pity and all this other good stuff and anger and hate. You know, so we went over that. I remember what I did early on. I'm just jumping back and forth. It was like in the fourth step. The fifth step, actually, with my daughter. I did a fifth step with my daughter. And she was in the crib. And she was laying there. Going goo-goo, ga-ga, and all this other good stuff. The step says to, you know, guard ourselves and know the human being. Didn't say they have to speak English. Or understand. And the same way I did with step eight. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and asked God to remove them. That's not what it says, but that's what I wanted it to say. I don't know what that job does. So I bargained a lot. In the early days. In my recovery. That's why, you know, even though I didn't drink, it didn't work. So we went through up to, you know, making my amends list. The next day I came back with the amends list. And we went over the amends list. When I was going to do it. Who I was going to do it with. How I was going to do it. And did that in a weekend. And I can't really say that my life has been, you know, a bowl of cherries. And wonderful. And perfect. And absolutely, you know, amazing. I have been homeless in recovery. I've been arrested in recovery. I've been divorced three times in recovery. And the fact that I haven't taken a drink is no big deal. Because it's no longer a part of my life. I look at it as the fact of when I was a kid. And I learned how to tie my shoes. And I would sit there and I would go this and this and this. And shoes would untie. Until I learned how to actually tie my shoes. And it became part of who I was. I don't wear shoes that often that I have to have laces on it these days. But if I do, I don't think about it anymore. I just tie my shoes. I can actually talk on the phone, watch television, and tie my shoes at the same time. It's the same thing with my recovery. I don't have to think about not taking a drink today. That's who I am. You know, it talks about we can go anywhere if our motives are correct. I've yet to find a good old-fashioned whoopee party. I've looked it up what it is, but I haven't found any yet. But I've been in bars and I've been in other places on 12-step calls. And I used to carry, you know, have like a couple of bottles. You know, by my front door. And we used to go out in the middle of the night with phone calls. And people would come and call us. And we would go out and take people and kind of wean them off. And sometimes taking them to a detox. And I also am not a firm believer in just everybody going to a detox. Because I think a lot of people in, and this is where the non-conformity piece comes in, is that not everybody needs a detox. There are some people who just, you know, drink once in a while. And maybe have a few drinks here and there who really, you know. Detox means detoxification. And if you're not toxified, you don't need detoxification. And you don't need to spend like $600,000 in a hospital. And spend a week there and make everybody else rich while you're getting a bunch of medication you really don't need. You know, so there was a bunch of us that went out there and babysat people for like three, four days. Wean them off of alcohol. I mean, I don't recommend for everybody, but, you know. There were a couple of us there who were counselors and who, you know, I mean, I was a detox counselor. So I kind of like knew what I was doing. But, you know, I don't believe in just somebody comes to a meeting and they're a wet drunk. First thing we do is turn them over to the professionals. I don't buy that. Because they're not supposed to do our jobs. You know, the 12 step is, you know, carrying this message. This message is not for the people who get paid to carry this message. This message is for the people who had, you know, spiritual experience as the result of these steps. Try to carry this message and practice these principles in all our affairs. And a lot of people leave that all our affairs thing out. And it's not just in the rooms of AA. It's all our affairs and, you know, helping little old ladies across the street. And if you hand somebody a $10. They'll be in a supermarket and they give you a change back for a $20. You don't say, gee, I lucked out on this one. You know, it's all our affairs. I had that the other night. It was like I paid for like gas, you know, like prepaid for the gas. And it went over $0.07, you know, on the pump. And I walked back in there and I said, the pump went over $0.07. And I handed the guy a dime and said, forget about it. He looked at me like I was nuts. And I said, well, I can sleep at night because of that. 90% of the time the people just say, eh, no big deal. But, you know, in all my affairs. But, you know, the whole thing is that I don't believe that everybody needs to go into a detox. I don't believe that everybody needs a treatment center. If we did sponsorship and answered the phones and carried the message and didn't say like, you know, wrestling is on. Can you call me back at 11? Can you call me back at 11? Or call me back tomorrow night or, you know, I'm having dinner or whatever it is. But I'm dying out here. You know, we'll call somebody else. I mean, I've had that. I've been in strange cities where I've called up, you know, the answering service. Is this AA? Well, it was. But I'm drinking again. Why don't you call the answering service and take your name off the list? I think if we do what we're supposed to do, which totally blows me away looking at this room and looking at like the amount of people who are in here. Because I'm used to meetings like Upstate New York where maybe the first row and a half would be full. You know, the group I go to, maybe we're lucky we get like 10, 12 people. It's usually not the same 10, 12 people. Four or five are the same. And it's nice seeing like a room like this of folks. But, you know, if we do what we're supposed to do, it's not about just not drinking. There's so much more to recovery than just not drinking. There's so much more to this way of life than just not drinking. This has been a last couple of days have been really. Interesting couple of days for me because I just found out that last week my 95 year old mother fell in Florida and bruised herself up pretty badly. And I was one of these little like, you know, I fall and I can't get up pendants. Didn't want to push the button because they would call my sister in Connecticut and she didn't want to disturb my sister. Didn't want to disturb me. So she laid on the floor. All night long at 95 years old because she didn't want to disturb us. And I just, you know, her hands like saying, OK, what do I do? You know, so I'm like at the moment kind of like considering retiring from my job, moving to Florida and kind of like taking care of her or, you know, making sure she got it. I mean, she obviously. She said we got her one of those Walker things. And she said the Walker rolled into the room and knocked her over. It's not an electric worker, mom. You can't do that. There's no poltergeist down there. So I'm hearing all kinds of conflicting stuff from neighbors and everything like that. So I don't know. I mean, you had all these like great plans in my life to like, you know, OK, I just recently, you know, applied for my social. Security retirement figuring it's like a twenty five thousand dollar a year raise me so I can work and make Social Security retirement and actually have a little better standard of living for myself for the next couple of years. But God's got other plans for me, I guess. I don't know. And again, there's so many things that have gone on in my life. It's like not once did the thought of a drink come to my mind. Not once did saying, why me come to my mind? You know, it's. And the other thing is, every time I go. I'm going to visit my mother. I got a group down there which is like maybe ten minutes away. You know, the 440 group in Margate, Florida, which is like I go to every time I'm there. Everything's prepared. Everything is set up. It's not about drinking, not drinking it. You know, and I've been in places where there's been no groups. I've been in places in my travels where, like whatever groups they have, they don't speak English. And I'm stuck in like, you know, Mexico somewhere where there's like. I cannot sit in a Spanish meeting. I'm sorry. You know, I can get by with a little bit. But I cannot do a whole meeting in Spanish. I know what they're saying, but I can't understand the word that they're saying. You know, I mean, I could do me llamo Mitchell and yo soy un alcoholico. That's it. That's as far as I can go. You know, but. The bottom line is, is that no matter what happens in my life, it's not about whether I pick up a drink. It's how I can be of maximum service. God and those around me. How could I could be of service to my mother? I could be of service to my sister. I could be of service to whatever it is that God puts in my path. And every morning when I wake up in my my quiet time, not like God keep me sober another day. It's what can I do for you? What do you have in mind for me today? And to be honest with you, there are times that God gives me stuff to do that I don't want to do. And God has free answer sometimes. Yes, no and later. I can deal with the yes. The no and later I have hard times with, especially the later. No, I could say, okay, no is no. Later is like when? So, you know, I mean, the message that I have in my primary purpose in life is, you know, to be of maximum service. Whoever I can, you know, I mean, when I got asked to come down here and speak and it's like, okay, I'm going to Long Island. I got asked in February, February, March, March to speak at a group anniversary in somewhere in outside of Akron, Ohio. And I said, okay, I'm going to drive out to Akron, Ohio. Nine hours. So I like left on Friday night, drove all night long and kind of parked my car out in front of Dr. Bob's house for you. Okay, I'm going to make something out of this thing and hung out in Akron, went to like the grave site, went, you know, visited Dr. Bob's house. And. And. You know, went to Akron, hit the group and hung out and did all kinds of stuff. And I was exhausted. I had not even sleep. I spoke Saturday night. And it was funny because I got a call from some guy from the city that Saturday night said like, hey, we're having a spiritual breakfast in Rockland County. Chris R. is coming to speak. You want to come? I said, I'm not driving back now, you know, for Sunday morning spiritual breakfast. So. But thank you anyway. And I passed out when I got back to one of the group members house and drove back Sunday afternoon. I was wiped out. But it's okay. Because God puts things in my things in my path that it's not that I can handle them. It's just we can. It's not even just we can handle them. It's because I've got people like you in rooms like this all around the world that I've gone into and I've been in that I can come into and be with. And I've been in that for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. I got the Internet. She's a very weird place to be sometimes. Very strange people on that planet. But again, it's not about just not drinking. I've been to enough funerals of people who were told just keep coming back. And sometimes people can't come back. Dead. And I think sometimes it's a disservice. That we give to people by telling them they can just keep coming back. I tell people, you know, there are times that you can't come back. There are times that alcoholism will kill you. I mean, just my personal life with, you know, I quit smoking and I thought it was in time. And a year and a half later, I found that I have COPD and emphysema. I guess it wasn't in time. The same way that I'm very grateful that I, you know, I thought I quit drinking in time. And I did quit drinking in time. However, my liver enzymes are always a bit elevated. And whatever doctor I go to always wants me to go for more tests. Because, you know, they think I have hepatitis. And it's like, no, no, they're elevated because I did a lot of stuff I wasn't supposed to do. For a whole lot of years, you know, and that's the way they are. And as long as they don't go higher, it's okay. They worry about me and it's okay. But today. Despite everything. Some days I'm not happy, joyous and free. Some days I'm miserable. But it's not about drinking. It's about whatever God puts in my path. And it's a good thing. Today, it's just, it's a blessing, you know, coming into a room like this and seeing people like you. Knowing that anytime I'm out in Long Island, I can always come here on a Tuesday night. Knowing that I can pick up a meeting list and have like, you know, God knows how many meetings to go to. I know when I lived in Manhattan, I picked up a New York City intergroup thing and there was like 5,000 some odd meetings I can go to seven days a week. It's like, you know, I have choices today. And I've never been to a bad meeting, but I've been to meetings that I didn't really care for. But I always got something out of it. The one thing I got out of some of those meetings I didn't care for, this is what I don't want in my recovery. And that's something good to learn. This is what I don't want. I don't want what you have. You know, I don't want what this group has. I, you know, I don't want whatever it is. And there are times that I've met people who have 30 days, who have more things on fire in their recovery than somebody with 25 years who is just not drinking and going to meetings. And people with 30 days who was like, you know, like, all right, I'm there, let's go. And then some people who are just taking up space in the chair. I'd rather have the on fire people. And I'm grateful and glad for groups like Primary Purpose who, you know, believe in the primary purpose and not just don't drink and go to meetings. And thanks for inviting me. And thanks for like a really great evening. Thank you.